Barrissoka: The Korriban Configuration
by Lordhadrian
Summary: Ahsoka and Barris discover Master Sifo Dyas on a derelict ship and become trapped by the nefarious Darth Plagueis! Can true love win against an evil plot to conquer the galaxy?


Barrissoka: The Korriban Configuration

Ahsoka twitched as she slept. The voice in her vision called to her with desperation

"Please, Jedi...help me!"

Her eyes fluttered open silently. She looked around for several seconds before she regained her senses.

It was the 3rd year of the war, and she was on a recon assignment with Captain Rex and Barriss Offee.

Barriss, sleeping in a bed not far from her, also woke up startled.

"I heard a voice calling" She looked at Ahsoka, who nodded in agreement.

"The odds of having the same dream are too astronomical. This was a distress signal!"

"The voice sounded familiar" Barriss looked at her "I think it was a Jedi Master...but it...it would be impossible!"

"What do you mean?" Ahsoka gently put her hands around Barriss affectionately.

Theirs was a forbidden relationship, hidden away from the troopers and the Jedi Order. Even they felt reluctant, but they could not deny what was in front of their eyes when they saw each other. Love.

"Jedi Master...Sifo Dyas. It sounded like Sifo Dyas...but, he disappeared years ago. We thought he was dead."

Ahsoka's commlink activated. Captain Rex was calling her.

"Commander, you better get up on the bridge. We've received a distress beacon from a derelict ship."

"On my way!" Ahsoka and Barriss dressed quickly and made their way to the lift.

"Should we contact the Jedi Council about Master Sifo Dyas?" Barriss contemplated.

"One thing at a time." Ahsoka concluded "After all, it could have been just a vision. We will cross that bridge at the right time."

They entered the bridge. Rex and a few other officers were gathered around the tactical table.

"What's the situation, Captain?"

"Commander Tano, the day is getting interesting out in this dull sector of space."

"Do we know how many survivors are on the ship?" Ahsoka peered over the scans of the unidentified craft.

"Looks like some sort of experimental model. I've never seen this design." Barriss observed the craft in the scan.

"This is an old style." Rex computed the diagnostic check next to the 3d hologram render. "It seems to be a frigate size, and if the computer's readings are correct, this model hasn't been in service for over 40 years."

Everyone marveled that such an antique could still be around.

"Well, the distress call still seems to work." Ahsoka smirked.

"I'll volunteer" Barriss interjected "There may be wounded."

"This could be a trap." Rex grimaced.

"Best thing to do is spring the trap" Ahsoka concluded the briefing.

Ahsoka and Barriss moved quickly to the hanger bay with a platoon of soldiers. They boarded a LAAT transport and moved to dock with the derelict.

The compartment was dark. Barriss slipped her hand to Ahsoka's.

"I have a bad feeling about this. I sense a strange, foreboding presence."

"We'll find out together what is hap-*gasp*" Ahsoka felt a tremor in the Force trying to comfort her anxious companion.

Barriss felt it at the same time. A voice calling out to them.

"Stop the Assembly! You must...not let him...do this!" The man's voice cried out in agony.

"Master Sifo Dyas!" Barriss looked shocked as she felt his pain "He's in torment...What did he mean by stopping the assembly?"

They landed in the dark hanger of the drifting hulk.

"I'll take half the men to the bridge." Ahsoka split the team. "Check towards the engineering, see if you find any survivors."

Barriss nodded and moved with the other half. She went room by room with her team as Ahsoka entered the lift.

Rex called out to them on the comlink "Be careful. The hull is preventing us from accurately scanning the ship. We can barely keep track of your team, let alone scan for life forms. Something is very dodgy about all this..."

Barriss heard a noise as her team moved down dark corridors. A hulking figure appeared from the shadows. There were hints of armor and metal on the figure.

"I found someone!" Barriss opened up her channel.

Ahsoka burst into the dusty, abandoned bridge and went to the terminal bleeting out the distress signal.

"All clear." One of the soldiers announced.

"Oh no..." Ahsoka furled her brow as she examined the signal. "Barriss! The vision is connected. Master Sifo Dyas sent the signal, but it wasn't a distress call for rescue...it was a warning! To stay away!"

The figure entered the flickering lights of the hallway, getting closer to her.

Barriss' troops aimed their guns at the man who appeared. Barriss gasped as she recognized the half man half machine.

"Master Sifo Dyas? What happened?"

The thing lumbering towards her had a metal eye with a red light beaming from the eerie socket.

"How do you like my new skin of metal?" He asked "I wasn't good enough to open the configuration, and the assembly still needs a key to open..."

"Open what?" Barriss walked over to him "Master Sifo Dyas, do you remember me? I'm Barriss Offee. Master Unduli's student."

"Ah, yes...perfect. You have a bright connection to the Force."

Sifo Dyas' voice warbled electronically, partially with menace, but also with despair.

"Forgive me...I am programmed...I tried to escape...but he used me...and controls me...The assembly...must not...ssssss...sssucceed..."

"Commander, get back!" One of the soldiers calls out.

"Who did this to you?" Barriss reached out to touch him.

Ahsoka ran to the lift "Barriss! Whoever he is, he is not Sifo Dyas! Not anymore!" Ahsoka sensed danger, and plots within plots.

"Commander Tano!" Rex called out "What's happening?"

The thing that was once Sifo Dyas smiled as he felt Barriss' compassion. But he was half machine, programmed to be unthinking, controlled by unnatural impulses and artificial commands.

"Though I am a failure to the assembly, I still have much power!"

The cyborg placed his hands on the walls and send out an electrical pulse that stunned everyone in the hallway. Barriss felt the shock wave erupt all around, stunning her into unconsciousness.

The thing picked her up and carried her past the troops, too stunned to move.

"Barriss? BARRISS?" Ahsoka called out. She exited the lift, running to regroup with the rest of the platoon.

Barriss woke up, but could not move, paralyzed from the shock attack.

"Where are you taking me?"

The thing looked down at her. Parts of his head had been plugged and rewired, a travesty of black, inhuman science.

"I must take you to the master. He will integrate you with the Assembly, and you will be the key to ushering in a new era...a new Sith Empire!"

"What?!" She could not believe what she was hearing. "Master Sifo Dyas! Fight against it! Use the Force to resist!"

"I cannot." It replied.

They came to an escape pod, shaped like a long thin tube. The thing that was once Master Sifo Dyas placed her in the canister.

"How ironic. I tried to create an army to guard against the Sith...and now I am a tool for Sith conquest..."

Ahsoka lights up her saber and runs towards him, but she is too late. The thing closes the canister and presses a button.

"LET HER GO!" Ahsoka ordered.

"It's too late, Jedi. I have sent her to fulfill her destiny. And now...I have no more purpose except to destroy!"

Sifo Dyas fired an electrical blast. Ahsoka dodged it quickly. She ran, jumped over him and proceeded to slice off his cyborg arms.

The cyborg Sifo Dyas screamed as sparks burst from his burnt metal wounds. He fell to his knees.

The Clone troops caught up with them and surrounded him. Sifo Dyas looked at her.

"Sorry, Jedi. I was programmed to serve, to finish the assembly. To serve the will of Darth Plagueis..."

"What!?" Ahsoka could not believe her ears.

"Your friend is on her way to Korriban. She will be made like me, and will usher in a new era for the Sith!"

Ahsoka felt a darkness surround Sifo Dyas, crushing him.

The cyborg screamed as the far reaching hand of Darth Plagueis, long thought to be an old scary legend, suffocated and crushed his metal frame. Ahsoka watched in horror as he burst into sparks and crumpled to the floor.

Rex called out over the comlink "What happened? Commander Tano, what is your status?"

Ahsoka signaled everyone back to the LAAT.

"One of our Jedi was sabotaged. He tried to escape, but was being used by...a dark lord of the Sith...And they've got Barriss."

"We detected an escape tube launched from the ship, one life form registered. We are tracking it and calculating it's course. Commander, it's going into a dead zone of space, there's nothing there!"

"Korriban is there, Captain. And so is Barriss...and there is no power in the galaxy that is going to STOP ME FROM SAVING HER!"

Ahsoka waited impatiently as the LAAT bolted back to the command cruiser. She jumped out and ran to her Jedi fighter.

Rex and the other men in her platoon gathered around her.

"Commander, I sure would like to know what you're doing."

"I have to save Barriss...I have to...if...If anything should..."

They looked at her with sympathy. Rex nodded "We've plotted her course. We'll follow your lead."

"Thanks Rex." Ahsoka pulled down the cockpit and launched herself out of the hanger bay and went full speed, following the trail of the canister.

"Ahsoka, we've picked up the coordinates of the planet." Rex reported.

"I see it." She grimaced. Korriban was a lonely place surrounded by a total blackness, almost outside of natural space. Even the sun that gave it light and energy seemed so very far away.

Ahsoka felt more pain in the Force. Barriss was now in the clutches of something dark and vile.

She felt Barriss' anguish and sensed a despair not seen since the brain worms. She could almost hear Barriss from the ether of the living Force, begging...for death.

"Kill me." Seemed to pervade her mind. Ahsoka wanted to break down and cry, but steeled herself and increased her fighter to its maximum speed as she entered the planet's atmosphere.

On the Surface of Korriban, Barriss had been taken by a group of cyborgs, and carried to a large Pyramid structure. It was a modern ship, shaped like the great tombs that covered the planet.

She was brought into a great hall, a sanctuary filled with a dark Sith reverence. It was almost like being in a gloriously gothic cathedral.

"Sifo Dyas had claimed he found the perfect specimen, but I had no idea how right he was. You, my small Jedi...are perfect!" A tall hooded figure invocated his excitement with a smile.

"PERFECT!" Shouted the cyborg acolytes that surrounded the figure. Their religious chants were in unison, and were hypnotically focused on the Dark Lords very words.

"Who are you? What did you do to Master Sifo Dyas!?" Barriss threw her questions at him defiantly. The cold of the Dark side was very numbing in this place, but she held steadfast with her discipline.

"There are Republic Forces on their way and they will destroy you if you do not surrender!"

The tall figure pulled back his hood to reveal himself as a pale thin Muun male who seemed to almost float towards her. His eyes were dark red with no pupils. He smiled ferociously. The great and terrible Darth Plagueis!

"You will be perfect for the assembly!" He chuckled.

"What are you talking about!?" Barriss demanded, but he ignored her with his grin.

"You shall be made perfect, made one with the assembly, a device built by the wisdom of Naga Sadow of the ancient Sith Empire...an Empire that will soon be reborn under my guidance!"

"REBORN!" The acolytes chanted

Barriss looked around and saw that the pyramid ship was not just a religious design, but also carried dark machinery that could transform normal beings into horrible creatures.

"I will not be a part of your assembly! I will die first!" Barriss struggled as they placed her into a restraining device.

"Your body will be modified to fit the assembly. This ship is not just a cruiser of Sith perfection designed by the brilliance of Naga Sadow, it is a doorway to the old Empire, to the past. As a Force sensitive creature, you will become part mystical machine, part battery to power the door open. We tried with Sifo Dyas, but his body was not compatible!

"NOT COMPATIBLE!" The acolytes continued.

"NO! I will not do this!" Barriss began to panic, trying to keep her discipline, trying to sense Ahsoka, trying to escape, but became exhausted as half a dozen machines wioth drills and saws closed in on her.

Plagueis laughed deeply. "Your Republic Forces are up against the might of Korriban! The most ancient homeworld of the Sith, home of the Dark Side itself! They will perish in flames!"

"PERISH!" The acolytes celebrated with religious fanaticism.

Plagueis floated towards her and caressed her face.

"And then, my lovely child..." The Dark Lord spoke softly "You will open the door, unleash my Sith brethren from another age, another time. And you will witness the final gasp of your pathetic Republic!"

He floated away from her.

The machines closed around Barriss, programmed to transform her into the perfect key to the door built by Naga Sadow of ancient times.

Barriss' torment filled the grand pyramid with climactic suffering.

And Ahsoka despaired as she sensed the suffering, holding back tears. Whatever Barriss was being used for, the plan was in motion...and she furled her brow against the dying of the light. Ahsoka became reborn in this moment, a transformation in herself. A lover with nothing to lose.

Ahsoka screamed her despair as she plummeted into the atmosphere towards Plagueis' ship. Whatever they were doing to her Barriss...she hoped she was not too late to stop the mad scheme.

"Rex..." She controlled herself and took deep breaths "If I am not back in 20 minutes, I want you to firebomb this planet, and wipe out any trace that the Sith were ever here! That's an order!"

Rex was silent, too shocked to respond as he looked at all the officers on the bridge. Everyone looked at him intensely.

"Y-yes, Commander."

Another voice entered Ahsoka's comlink

"Foolish Jedi! You would dare attack on the eve of Sith victory? I shall destroy you as I have destroyed the one you love."

Ahsoka landed and did not slow down, hopping out of her Jedi fighter and running at the large Pyramid structure with saber lit.

"I'm going to give you one chance and one chance only. You give me back Barriss, or you're going to be living in a world of hurt!" she growled

Plagueis laughed at her threat.

Ahsoka carved a hole in the side of the pyramid and jumped in without slowing her momentum.

Darth Plagueis looked to his cyborg acolytes. "Bring me her head! I will not brook such arrogance from a child!"

Plagueis walked over to Barriss, who was now plugged into the great Assembly of Naga Sadow. Next to her was a cyclopian portal, ready to be opened to another world, another time. The horde of the Sith awaited on the other side, ready to conquer the galaxy.

"Let the great configuration begin!" Plagueis activated the device, sucking away Barriss' mind and soul to energize the door.

Cyborg minions rushed through the dark hallways, chanting for the death of all who oppose the will of Plagueis.

Sounds of blasters and light saber combat echoed through the halls, and the chants for Ahsoka's death soon turned to pleas for mercy and screams of pain.

Ahsoka had become one with her blade. She had become the Fury of the Jedi.

Ahsoka was fighting one of the acolytes and proceeded to rip off his arm. She slipped it on like a glove and used the energy blaster in the hand to whittle down all resistance coming at her.

Barriss felt the Sith device pulling her small body in physical and emotional directions even though she was plugged into one spot.

"AHSOKA!" She called out.

"The assembly has begun, child, and nothing can stop the door from opening!" Plagueis ignored her, but his jaw soon drooped as Ahsoka burst into the chamber, burning her way through half a dozen cyborgs standing guard.

"YOU!" Ahsoka pointed at him boldly, without fear. "Your ass is mine!"

Plagueis sneered in contempt.

"You think you can stop the configuration!? Think you can stop the new era of Empire?! Think you can stop a dark lord of the Sith!? I AM PLAGUEIS! I am the creator of life, and I will not suffer the presence of a mere Jedi padawan!"

"I am Ahsoka Tano, of the Jedi Order, and if you will suffer me!"

Plagueis roared as he lit up his saber and charged. Ahsoka leapt upon him like fire and ice and rage.

They battled in front of the great assembly device, in front of Barriss, who watched helplessly.

Their duel became like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, burning at the center of time, turning the fate of the galaxy in one moment as the configuration nearly completed itself.

The great door blazed with energy, a dimensional opening. Ahsoka could hear the throngs, the Sith horde on the other side eagerly awaiting to come through.

"Sifo Dyas could not stop it, and neither can you!" Plagueis threw lightning upon her in the darkest hour of the Republic.

"You know what?" Ahsoka gritted her teeth as they pressed their sabers against each other in the last tug of war in the duel. "You talk too much!"

Ahsoka punched him in the gut with the cyborg arm she wore like a glove.

Plagueis doubled over and knew in an instant...he had lost to a girl Jedi.

Ahsoka pushed him back against the portal energy and impaled him to it.

Shrieks could be heard on the other side. The Sith, unable to enter yet, watched in horror as one of the great Dark Lords of all time was defeated.

Plagueis and Ahsoka stared each other down as she pressed the saber further into him.

Enraged, he yelled and tried to blast her with murderously red lightning, but she deflected it with her hand. Deflecting it back into him.

Plagueis' screams of agony from his own lightning energy was a legendary howl that would echo across Korriban for centuries.

Ahsoka grabbed her saber with both hands and ripped it through his body as she pulled it out of him witha mighty roar.

Plagueis fell back into the portal and was obliterated.

"Ahsoka, run! The portal is collapsing!" Barriss pleaded as the Pyramid started to quake. "It's too late for me!"

Ahsoka looked at Barriss. "I came here for you! And I am not leaving without you!"

Ahsoka threw her hands out to pull Barriss from the machine with all her living might. With a scream, She tore Barriss away from the Assembly. The cyborg connection was severed, and the machine began to burn itself out.

The configuration, a dream and nightmare built by Naga Sadow and almost realized by Plagueis, had begun to warp and fall apart in a spectacular display of fireworks.

Ahsoka carried Barriss away like a leaf on the wind. fire and blackness consumed the hallways but did not slow her down, even with Barriss cradled in her arms.

The entire pyramid was being ruptured by the failed device, consumed in darkness. The lamentations of the Sith could be heard from the other side as they mourned being so close to galactic conquest. So close, and yet defeated by one filled with the Light.

Filled with a love that would restore the galaxy to right. A love that would give itself to the void to save the one life most precious to it.

Love's Labor won.

Ahsoka ran through the hole she burned into the pyramid, running far to get out of the blast of the explosions consuming the area.

"Ahsoka..." Barriss whispered as the wind whipped around them. She felt this was their last moment together in life. She held her lover as tightly as she could as the Pyramid was vaporized in its darkness.

Ahsoka braced for the shock wave and looked down at her and gasped out in her native Togrutan tongue...

"Avec tout mon Coeur..."

Ahsoka knelt down and embraced her, and kissed her with the power of eternal light as chaos obliterated the Korriban desert around them.

After a few minutes, the dust settled, debris rained down around where the Pyramid had been. After the shock wave was a silence, a stillness of peace and tranquility. The Dark Side of Korriban retreated, vanishing from Ahsoka's senses.

All she could sense was Barriss and her aura. Barriss had fallen unconscious, but her heart was at peace, knowing that Ahsoka would always be watching over her.

Rex jumped on the comlink in a panic.

"Commander! Are you okay!? Commander!? Come in, Ahsoka!"

Ahsoka was still kissing Barriss, still embraced. She pulled away from Barriss' soft lips and slowly gasped from the marvel of realizing they were still alive.

"Everything is okay, Captain. Barriss is safe. We are leaving this world."

Ahsoka carried Barriss to her Jedi fighter with care, the Sith world falling apart behind her.

Barriss Offee was not frail or helpless as a Jedi, but Ahsoka could not help but feel that losing her would be like losing half of her very existence.

She caressed sleeping Barriss.

"Tu est mon raison, mon ame."

In this moment, even in a galaxy at war, all was well.


End file.
